Corinne received her Ph.D. in cognitive neuroscience from Temple University. Working with Dr. Nora Newcombe, Corinne’s research focused on spatial cognition – specifically, the development of navigation ability, spatial reasoning, and the acquisition and retrieval of spatial information.

In her first year, Corinne examined the role of slope as a navigational cue in school-age children. Results from this study indicate that experience with sloped-terrains may impact slope perception, and subsequently the use of slope, to successfully reorient in an otherwise featureless environment. In her second and third year, Corinne examined how spatial skills, such as mental scaling and proportional reasoning, can be improved via play-based interventions.

Corinne’s most recent work focuses on spatial memory – specifically, how the manner in which we view a space impacts our ability to accurately encode, store, and flexibly retrieve spatial information. In her initial investigation, Corinne examined the effect of array rotation and observer movement as mechanisms used to transition between multiple viewpoints of a table top array. Compared to static views, both types of transitions improved spatial learning and memory suggesting that continuous visual flow was key, no matter the movement used to generate it. Her dissertation extended this work by using a more complex array that could not be viewed from a single vantage point. Findings from this study showed an advantage for observer movement only, suggesting that movement around a stable array provides a more precise spatiotemporal framework used to organise discrete episodes in memory, thus improving overall accuracy of the integrated spatial representation. This work was awarded the Psychonomic Society Graduate Student Research Award in 2016.